


Water Free

by Iiteru



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: I had this in my docs for a long time, Ice Magic, M/M, Magic, Magical Accidents, Mermaid! Yeosang, Mermaids, Past Tense, Seonghwa and Jongho outlived everyone lmao, Seonghwa's, Slow Burn, Slow Updates, Water Magic, based loosely around h2o, college au kind of, er... mermen?, mermaid au, merman! Yeosang, mysterious island adventures, nobody dies in the fic though, tons of conflict with that, tons of liquid magic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-25 20:34:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18268883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iiteru/pseuds/Iiteru
Summary: "You're a mermaid?""Uh..." Yeosang trailed, arms crossed over the side of the pool. "Surprise?"





	Water Free

**Author's Note:**

> Hi so !! In this, Jinae is Seonghwa's great niece because that fits best with the age I want him to be... but it's easier to just have her call him uncle instead of "great uncle" every time, so...alskdjfhg
> 
> Anyways, enjoy !

It was that time of the day again where the sky gave way to night fall. 

stars clung to the sky and shone like glittering diamonds on a velvet canvas. It was late June in the city, the atmosphere that was typically covered by the mask of streetlights and city life was finally replaced with the beautiful cast of the galaxy above. 

It was as gorgeous a sight as it was rare for those who dwelled in the buildings that reached up towards the sky; Something foreign and long since under appreciated. From the moment that the sun cast its heart-tightening display of oranges and purples as the preface the ebony, it was like something out of a dream. But that night, the wind found its way to every soul outside. The warmth of the sea seemed to weave itself into the lives of those living even in the urbanest of areas, smiling as it whistled through wayward locks of hair and tickled across smooth skin.

Park Seonghwa was among those to feel the spirit of the ocean. 

He was an old man around the age of seventy who sat on the front of his beach house in a little old tattered lawn chair he’d had since he was a teenager. His hair once black like the sky above him was now almost completely gone, and what minimal remained shone in hues of silver. The only physical remainders of his youth were the wrinkles that tugged beside his lips and two soft eyes dimmed by age. Yet, they still held a sparkle of childish joy grown by time all the wiser. Peacefully, they gazed out to the ocean in front of him. 

He was lucky to be away from the city that night, and he watched as the saltwater waves crashed and retreat back to the ocean in a never-ending cycle. And there, way out far, far in the distance, a tiny bubble of land seemed to call him in. A sad smile pulled up his lips at the faint reminiscence of time that seemed far too long ago to a time where he might've listened.

Then, suddenly, an image flashed through his mind. It was so vivid that it was like he was watching it happen all over again, but from the outside; a spectator to his own memories. 

A vision of himself in his early twenties appeared. He waded into the water, dressed only in a t-shirt and his bathing suit. He smiled brightly, teeth a brilliant shade of white as he cast a look back over his shoulder with eyes of wonder.

Watching, it felt like his youth was calling at him to follow. To get up, damn the chair, the chronic back pain, and the responsibilities he had and just _go_. But then another person manifest, a moving blurb that solidified the closer it got to the image of his younger self. He was shorter and much thinner, brown hair soft as it bounced and ruffled in the wind of his stride. Younger Seonghwa stepped out of the waves and reached a hand out to him, smile impossibly brightening. Carefully, the man that joined him smiled back and laughed, sound muted in the silence. 

_Kang Yeosang._

The vision of the younger Seonghwa gestured for Yeosang to follow him into the water. The two looked back and forth down the beach, empty in the night but perhaps alive once long ago. With mischievous grins of a pair recklessly in love, they started to run towards the water. Then, in a flash, they disappeared into the waves.

“Uncle Seonghwa?” Whispered the small voice of a girl behind him. She stood in the doorway of the porch, no older than seven, rubbed at her eyes sleepily. Her voice roused him from his imaginatory slideshow, and he blinked at the bare beach in front of him. 

Where he had seen himself and Yeosang, there was nothing. Nothing but the reality of the beach and the roar of the waves as they licked the sand languidly. They were gone, fragments of what used to be.

“Ah, Jinae,” He pulled on a warm smile, lips pressed together sadly, and looked over his shoulder at her. “Shouldn’t you be asleep?” 

“I just can’t…” The young girl whined. She wandered across the porch to the spot where Seonghwa sat, socked feet silent and well placed against the wood. He patted his lap and she clambered up into it without the slightest bit of hesitation, humming appreciatively as arms wrapped around and pulled her close.

“Busy thinking?” Seonghwa asked softly. Jinae nodded and leaned her head against his shoulder. A gentle slipped past her lips, eyes cast out to the ocean.

“It’s like my thoughts don’t know when to stop… I can’t sleep; I just can’t do it. No matter how hard I try, the thoughts keep coming back.”

“Ah,” Seonghwa nodded to himself slowly, “Would you mind telling me what you’re thinking about?” 

Jinae gave him a nod and a tiny sigh. Her little fingers traced shapes onto his hands absently. “It’s about what Daewon and I found in the old trunk under your bed. We weren’t supposed to go in there, and I’m really, really sorry about it, but Daewon kept on trying to get me to help him… And…” “We found the little box in there? The one with the ring in it? And the other one with the necklace and the letters? Who wrote them, Uncle Seonghwa? Were they mom’s?”

The sad smile returned to his lips. “Ah, that box…” He murmured, the day he first received it as clear as yesterday. He could still see the smile on Yeosang’s lips as they carved their initials onto the side, the glow of the sunset as it slipped away into a night much like the very one they shared then, and the smell of salt in the air like it was happening all over again. The necklace, the _ring_. “That box was very special to me…”

“So... it’s not mom’s?”

Seonghwa shook his head and squeezed his arms around her affectionately. “No, it belonged to your other uncle. My husband, Kang Yeosang. He and his friends all had a person in their lives they entrusted with those necklaces... They were very special pieces of jewelry; timeless. Unlike anything else but their counterparts.”

“Uncle Yeosang had a special necklace?” Jinae gasped. Her curiosity grew with every mysterious detail that slipped from Seonghwa lips to her youthful ears. “Story time, story time! C’mon, Uncle Seonghwa! Tell me, please?” She begged as she clung to his arm and stared intently up at him with wide, hopeful eyes. 

Seonghwa chuckled and tipped his head back in a hearty laugh, eyes crinkling at the edges. “Alright, alright; But this is a very big story. You have to promise not to tell it to anyone. No matter how much you want to share your uncles’ story, alright?”

Jinae nodded eagerly. “I promise.” 

He had only ever told the story once… It was years ago when Jinae and Daewon when they were both children asleep in the crib. His sister had walked in on the storytelling at the time. She was one of the few people that didn't have to hear the story to know what had happened, she was a part of it. She listened and re-lived the moments she was alive to experience as the two of them reminisced their lives into a story simple enough for a child to comprehend… But to the infants, it was nothing more than fairy tale. A fairy tale where magical boys with mermaid tails and sandy hair were nothing more than a figment of one’s imagination; Something impossible rather than the recalling of a memory.

With a deep breath, he let the memories fill his mind once more. Nights out in a boat on the sea, climbing through rocks on a mysterious island, keeping secret after secret and falling in love along the way… The brilliant smile of his lover the first and last times he ever saw it. The lies, the breakdowns, betrayal, and the secrets nights that only they knew about.

“Look out there,” He said as he gestured out across the sea, “the story starts on a night much like this one.”

Jinae’s eyes followed. The water rippled like ribbons pulled in the moonlight and the stars that hung ahead shone brighter than anything she’d ever known. The smile grew on her lips as she watched the waves move together in harmony, mystical and magical in ways that only a child's imagination are capable of rendering the simplest of things.

“It was the middle of the summertime many years ago. I was here with my best friends seeking the adventure of a lifetime… but what I got was worth more than a thousand combined: Vast, interesting, and maybe even a little…” He trailed off and looked at her with a smile. “ _Magical._ ”

“Magic?” Jinae beamed. Seonghwa nodded, the glitter of the secret alive in his eyes.

“I can’t tell you everything, but I will tell you what I can. But! You have to promise to go to sleep after, alright?”

“Cross my heart!” Jinae swore. She dragged her finger hastily across her chest in a mockery of the promise, gesticulations wild. 

Seonghwa took another deep breath and closed his eyes, the memories right beneath his fingertips. He could feel them; they were right there. Everything about his youth that was burned into his mind, his memory… Everything he had tried to keep suppressed. 

Could he really do it? He promised Jinae, but it had been so long since he'd remembered his teenage years. He'd buried them for a reason. He'd ignored the thought of them because there was a _reason_. It was so difficult for him to think about his friends... It was so difficult to think about Yeosang even though it had been years since the accident.

He opened his eyes and looked out at the beach. 

Once more, he saw a vision. He blinked in shock as he watched them all move in their youth. Hongjoong, San, Mingi, Yunho, Jongho, Wooyoung, Yeosang, and himself; All of eight of them together, smiling and laughing as they walked along the beach. 

He watched as the ghostly apparitions moved, oblivious to his gaze. Yunho gently nudged at Mingi, whispered something Seonghwa couldn’t hear, and the boy smiled shyly. San said something and Wooyoung’s face lit up as it if were the funniest joke he had ever heard in his life. He tilted his head back and laughed, but there was no sound to his jovial reaction. Though the image was silent, he could hear the laugh clear as day in his memory. Jongho and Hongjoong looked to be in their own conversation, lost in their own little world, and Yeosang and his younger self trailed behind them. Seonghwa's own smile crept onto his face as he watched.

It had been years since he'd seen their faces in his imagination. Usually when he remembered things, what minimal his mind deemed tolerable enough, there was only Yeosang. Yet, there they were. Each and every one of the seven boys he held closest to his heart in front of him. 

His eyes followed along in silence as he prayed silently that they would come back to him; That he could rewind time and see each of them again, hug them, say the things he didn't know how to when he was young and naive. Then, as everyone continued on down the beach, the younger image of himself stopped. 

He turned towards Seonghwa and Jinae on the porch, the sight of older Seonghwa in shock and Jinae patient in his lap as she waited for her uncle to reveal the secrets of the people that only he could see. They made eye contact, the illusion of his youth and the reality of his wisdom eye to eye. 

The eyes of younger Seonghwa lingered on Jinae. He looked like he was thinking for a moment, silent and rendered speechless like the rest of them. It was as if he were taking in every little detail about her, committing her long dark hair and toothless grin to memory. The smallest smile crossed his lips after a moment, proud. 

Yeosang, who had continued to walk ahead with the rest of the group, turned around to notice Seonghwa was no longer following. He bounced back over to younger Seonghwa and grabbed at his hand softly. His eyes followed silently to the direction of older Seonghwa and Jinae on the porch of the beach house. Then, He smiled shyly, and in an instant Seonghwa knew what that meant.

_Tell our story._

He opened his mouth to speak to their manifestations, to say something to the image of his lover when he looked like he did when he first fell in love with him, but Yeosang tugged younger Seonghwa's hand and they took off running after the rest of the boys, bodies evaporating into golden dust that melted into the night.

Seonghwa’s mouth felt dry. His heart felt like it had stopped beating, and he let out a breath he hadn't even known he'd been holding.

Yeosang’s story deserved to be told.

All of their stories deserved to be told.

With a deep breath and one final glance out at the water, he began.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to come talk to me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/iiteru) !


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